Grab Your Toothbrush, We’re Going For a Drive!

I feel like I was born with Tires Underneath Me!

I grew up going on MANY road trips with my extremely adventurous parents and my siblings – and sometimes our family pets! – I do not recommend cats in a car.

Like BIG road trips…like Alaska to Virginia and Virginia to Alaska kind of road trips…like nearly 4000 miles each way across the country six times before I was 13 years old kind of road trips.

This involved Ferries (the Alaska Marine Highway) and freeways and dirt roads and mountain passes and long boring stretches of plains and big cities and the cutest tiny towns and…quite literally everything in between. All of this in some type of station wagon. My dad says we had a 1979 Blue Ford Bronco, but I don’t remember that car.

We went a different route each time, making sure to see all of the sites, all of the national parks, all of the historical monuments, all of the different cultures, climates and terrains, ALL of the random things along the way, but always the sordid truck stops and diners too. My mom had a CB (Citizens Band) radio and she would let us talk to truckers. Man, I WISH I could remember her handle name…I know it was something really fun – she was SO cool! Maybe it was “Mountain Mama”….if not, it should have been.

And yes, of course, we played the “I Spy” and the “Slug Bug” games together, kept track of every single state’s license plate that we saw (and often got all 50!) and did the traditional “Honk-Honk” signal with our arms to semi-trucks that passed us. They all participated, and we loved it…every time. I still do this sometimes as a grown ass woman and it makes me smile just the same as it did 40+ years ago.

We ate at truck stops (“greasy spoons” as my parents called them) that most wouldn’t step foot in. I ALWAYS ordered the chicken fried chicken, no matter what time of day it was…with extra gravy. Every once in a while, we would be allowed to order room service at our hotel as a special treat. I always got French onion soup and a chocolate milk. I felt so fancy!

When my mom was still alive, she liked to tell the story of the time us kids were fighting so badly in the back of the car that she ended up having to put a masking tape line in between each of us on the seat that we were strictly prohibited from crossing…and then my older sister once yelled “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! SARAH’S LOOKING OUT MY WINDOW!!!!!!!!”. Good times for sure. Ha!

My parents would give us a “bucket” or a Tupperware bin and we could bring with us whatever would fit in there. It stayed in front of each of us on the floorboard. Those were our individual things, and we didn’t have to share unless we wanted to. A deck of cards, a coloring book and crayons, a small babydoll, etc… I usually chose to share with my little brother. He was my best friend. More like, I was his boss and he was scared of me, but whatever.

On one of these trips my little brother got SUPER sick and threw up constantly in zip lock bags my mom had packed, for this exact reason, I am sure. We spent the night in the Emergency Room in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I remember us getting what I thought at the time was a VERY fancy hotel (because it had an indoor pool!) and we swam while he barfed laying on a lounge chair.

A blue “Rest Stop Ahead” sign still makes me giddy. We stopped often…to pee, to run around and get our energy out, to stretch, to explore, to have a snack. I remember always doing cartwheels down the sidewalks. My road snacks always consisted of salty, crunchy things. I’m still this way. Sunflower seeds, Combos (the elongated pretzels with either cheese or peanut butter inside), beef jerky and occasionally a Vanilla Charleston Chew bar! My mom loved snacks till the day she died.

I was born in Juneau, Alaska but both of my parents were born and raised in Virginia. Hence why we traveled back and forth so many times. I think I went to nine Elementary Schools between Kindergarten and 5^th grade. I loved it. I thrived on just picking up and going, making new friends, discovering new places, setting up my new bedrooms. Not everyone is like this, which is hard for me to relate to. It’s a blessing and a curse – I get bored easily.

We have a saying in my family, still to this day, “Grab Your Toothbrush, We’re Going For A Drive”. My dad would often say that on a Friday afternoon when he got home from work at the local rock quarry and we literally would get in the car with whatever we were wearing, maybe some pajamas and a toothbrush, sometimes shoes, and hit the road. Thinking back on this, we were SO lucky! You can’t do that in Juneau, as there are only about 22 miles from one end of town to the other, but in the South, the roads are endless! I have such beautiful, vivid memories of these spontaneous adventures! It shaped me. It made me into the insanely curious person I am today. I’m so grateful for this past life I had! I feel like I was born with tires underneath me.